"The Laramie Project"
Exeter’s Senior Acting Ensemble performed “The Laramie Project,” this year’s annual spring term main stage production, was performed over this past weekend by Exeter’s Senior Acting Ensemble at Fisher Theater. The play portrayed the effects and reactions to the murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998, a gay student enrolled at the University of Wyoming. The killing sparked awareness surrounding the lack of laws put in place to persecute individuals for hate crimes, an important issue in the country’s development. Speaking on why he believed the piece was so popular, post graduate and actor postgraduate Tommy Mobley said, “When you read it and recognize that all of these words were said by people, by human beings, it really takes the play to a whole new level. The fact that the actors are in the audience makes the play a community experience.” All members of the audience were intertwined into the setting of the play with the cast.
Senior Stephen Hu, a member of the audience who was encouraged by a friend to attend, said, “My proximity to the center of the stage enabled me to sit next to an actor, as the cast frequently shifted between different seats during the play.” He continued, “Contrary to the usually-detached relationship between the actors on stage and the audience off stage, it was a unique experience to hear them reciting the lines right next to me, to see them immersed in emotions as I was, to feel their warmth when they tugged on my shoulder and wiped away my tears.”
The performance was set at a town meeting which required the actors to address and discuss their issues in order to move forward. The reality of the play set a very serious tone for the audience and as a result left a strong impact by showing students how the issue affects people around the world.
"The cast blew me away; it was a powerful, transcendent way to end the year."
Hu added, “It was definitely one of the most powerful and mesmerizing shows I’ve watched during my time at Exeter. The subject matter was beautifully touching and brutally real.” Hu also noted that in many moments during the play he found himself to be engaged in a rollercoaster of love and hate. He explained that the play was such a strong piece because it demonstrated a revolution of acceptance and restoring faith in humanity while also propagating hate as Shepard’s life was “vehemently sacrificed because of his sexual orientation.”
Mobley added that as some of the actors were relatively inexperienced, it allowed for the cast to come each day and read the script with a fresh and new perspective. With that being said, Mobley noted some difficulties he faced when representing such a sensitive issue. “I think that’s been hard for some of us to correctly portray another person’s perspective that’s so distant from ours. For example, I fully believe that gay people should have totally equal rights, legally and socially. However, we have to respect that everybody has their own opinions, beliefs and viewpoints. We have to do our best to portray other people’s viewpoints honestly, rather than portray that person as evil,” Mobley said.
Director Robert Richards, chair of the Theater Department, said, “What the 17 seniors accomplished in the Laramie Project was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.”
As a whole the senior cast loved working with Richards on the Project. Postgraduate Mathias Valenta expressed his gratitude for having the chance to work with Richards, “He is genuinely a good, gentle person: one of the kindest souls I have ever met. The amount of emotional weight he’s invested in this production is moving, and has led to a great experience for both actors and audience.”
He said Mobley described Richards as a “talented and visionary director.” Mobley discussed how Richards picks up on lots of little details and is lenient in his advice so that actors can come to terms with their character themselves. “That’s a really great part of his directing, as he gives freedom with structure to his actors. He helps his actors stay on the right path, but allows them to do all the work, and interpretation themselves,” Mobley said. Similarly to Mobley, Valenta described Richards as “the very definition of positive reinforcement” which he believes led to better results and a happier cast.
Richards expressed his happiness with the cast’s end result, “The cast blew me away; it was a powerful, transcendent way to end the year.”